Assault on docs: AIIMS strike called off

A strike by doctors at AIIMS here today was called off late in the evening after hospital officials agreed to fulfill their demands for adequate security following an attack by a patient's relatives on three senior resident doctors.
The doctors had gone on an indefinite strike demanding adequate security after alleging that the kin of a patient admitted in Surgical Emergency brandished guns and beat up the three doctors who were on duty. The doctors said that those involved in the incident then fled the hospital campus in an SUV after breaking the AIIMS main gate.
Hospital administration lodged a complaint with police who have arrested three persons in connection with the matter.

The resident doctors demanded that enough armed security personnel be deployed outside the Emergency to prevent such incidents.
"It is not at all done that patients' relatives assault doctors who are after all there to save their lives... Today, three senior resident doctors were beaten up... One of the doctors' nasal bone was fractured," said Dr Shashank Pooniya, General Secretary of AIIMS Resident Doctors Association.
"We demand from the administration that security should be deployed outside the Emergency. Not just security, but armed security should be there to prevent such untoward incidents," he said.
According to hospital sources, the incident took place as a patient was brought to Surgical Emergency where the senior resident doctors, upon examination, found it to be a case for neurosurgery and called a neurosurgeon.

But while the doctors on duty performed the initial procedure and before the neurosurgeon could arrive, the patient's family members got agitated and created a ruckus. They also pulled out pistols and beat up the three resident doctors, the sources added.